1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an image forming apparatus, a control method for the image forming apparatus, and a storage medium.
2. Description of the Related Art
Conventionally, memory cards or universal serial bus (USB) memories have been used for personal computers or digital cameras. Further, in printing apparatuses, a model which is mounted with a hard disk conventionally exists. The memory cards have disadvantages such as smaller memory capacities, slower write speeds and limited lifetime as to a number of write operations (hereinafter, a number of writes) as compared with the hard disks. However, the memory cards offer also significant advantages with respect to an attaching method or availability, price, easiness to carry, resistance to vibration, thermal resistance, and therefore, they may be also used as a storage medium in place of a hard disk.
In recent memory cards, the mainstream has shifted from a compact flash memory to a secure digital (SD) card, and in digital cameras, the SD-card has become a main storage medium. Further, the SD-card may be used in some cases for the digital video cameras.
The SD-card has a limit of up to 2 GB storage capacity, and in a case of more than 2 GB capacity, a secure digital high capacity (SDHC) card will be used. The SD-card, SDHC-card, the USB memory, and compact flash memory all include flash memory which has become a main storage medium, and uses NAND flash memory which is suitable mainly for large capacity.
However, while flash memory has fast read speed, it has a drawback of slow write speed. To compensate for slow write speed of single piece of the flash memory, parallel processing or buffering is performed by a flash memory controller mounted on respective cards.
Also in image forming apparatuses, there is a model which is detachably equipped with a memory card, especially an SD-card, in place of the hard disk. The hard disk is at a disadvantage with respect to component volume, attachability, and price.
The SDHC-card when used in the image forming apparatus has various use applications, which include, for example, an automatic program updating tool, a reception buffer, and data storage of page description language (PDL) system (BOX function). The capability of an SD-card varies depending on functions such as a function which uses write speed, a function which uses read speed, and a function which uses only memory capacity. (Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2010-147970).
However, in an SDHC-card, while the read speed does not vary significantly depending on the quality of the SDHC-card, the write speed varies significantly depending on the quality of the SDHC-card. Generally, if the SDHC-card has the same memory capacity, the more inexpensive the SDHC-card, the slower the write speed, and the more expensive the SDHC-card, the quicker the write speed.
Therefore, in a case where an inexpensive SDHC-card is attached to the image forming apparatus, the write speeds of the SDHC-card used by the functions of the image forming apparatus cannot be met. In such a case, when the image forming apparatus operates using the attached SDHC-card, there is a possibility that, for example, a problem such as an overrun (defective image) occurs during a printing process.
Therefore, among the functions of the image forming apparatus, there is a function which can use the SDHC-card with no problem, and a function which cannot use the SDHC-card with no problem, depending on the write speed of the SDHC-card. However, the user may not know a function as to which the SDHC-card meets the write speed, or a function which does not meet the write speed, or may not know what function uses what degree of the write speed. Consequently, an expensive SDHC-card with fast write speed has typically been attached to image forming apparatuses.